The South Whidbey School Board gave its annual fall retreat a new name and came away with a new plan.

Instead of a retreat, the board tagged it as an “advance,” a bit of public relations spin to show the school district wants to move forward. The board’s meeting with District Superintendent Jo Moccia back in early August created a review of its standards and a draft action plan.

The elected five-person board of directors has some work ahead. In a public document, the board said its top priorities were to create a long-term facilities plan that addresses students’ safety needs, and to have all staff operate with a customer focus.

“Students are our customers,” Moccia read from the document at the board’s Aug. 22 business meeting.

Facilities continued to be a hot topic for the school district. The school board voted to scrap plans to consolidate Langley Middle School with South Whidbey High School last year. The future of the historic middle school has been a contentious issue on the South End since the previous board voted to move the middle schoolers to the high school campus.

Moccia established a committee to review the district’s facilities use, which will in turn submit a review to the board for consideration.

The board also plans to use committees and study groups to better understand some of the school district’s issues, seek public input, share a district and plan for decision making.